The much-anticipated deal for Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) to take control of the NBC Universal division of GE (NYSE:GE) may die next week . Vivendi, which owns 20% of NBCU, believes that the entertainment and news company is worth much more than GE does.
According to the FT, “General Electric and Vivendi are at least $1bn apart in their valuation of the French group’s stake.”
It will be a challenge for GE to operate a business that it clearly wants to sell. Read More
Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE: AGO) over 32% to a yearly high of $28.14 after the company posted earnings of $0.44 per share, beating analysts estimates.
Semitool Inc (NASDAQ: SMTL) rose over 30% to a yearly high of $11.00 after Applied Materials Inc (NASDAQ: AMAT) agreed to buy the company for $11.00 per share, or $364 million.
Sina Corp (NASDAQ: SINA) rose over 10% today to a yearly high of $47.95 after the Chinese internet portal beat earnings and projected margin improvements.
Tween Brands Inc (NYSE: TWB) rose over 11% today to a yearly high o $10.16 after the company posted a profite of $0.58 per share, beating analyst estimates.
Garrett W. McIntyre
Lou Dobbs and his ranting and raving about immigration and whether the president was born in the US finally cost him his job. He and his employer CNN spun it differently. Dobbs implied that he was moving on to bigger things which might include a run at national office.
As it turns out, according to The New York Post, Dobbs got $8 million as he left the CNN headquarters, suddenly, last week. Read More
CBS (NYSE:CBS) and Sirius XM (NYSE:SIRI) pose the greatest investment risks among media companies based on a forensic measure of their transparency and the statistical reliability of their financial reporting and governance practices, according to new data from Audit Integrity. The probability for bankruptcy for Sirius is 8.5% and 4.6% for CBS. Both numbers are remarkably low, but still high for major US companies. Audit Integrity’s bankruptcy model achieved 90.9% accuracy in 2008 and 93.8% in 2009.
The safest companies for investors, based on the same measurement are Disney (NYSE:DIS) and DirecTV (NYSE:DTV). The rest of the firms in the analysis are Time Warner (NYSE:TWX), Viacom (NYSE:VIA), Comcast (NYSE:CMCSA), Cablevision, (NYSE:CVC), GE (NYSE:GE), and Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC). Read More
SIRIUS XM Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI) announced that Gary Parsons has resigned as Chairman of the Board of Directors. The satellite radio giant has appointed Eddy Hartenstein, an independent director, to serve as non-executive chairman. An excerpt from Parsons’ farewell note was:
The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) is out with earnings and the report is a solid one compared to what we have seen elsewhere, yet it too saw mostly erosion in its business segments. For the quarter, the Mouse House posted $0.47 EPS compared to $0.40 in the prior-year quarter, but that figure had gains from the Lifetime/A&E transaction and restructuring and impairment charges, which together resulted in a net benefit of $0.01. If you back out all items, the company is showing a 5% earnings gain to $0.46 EPS. Revenues were down 4% year over year to $9.867 billion. Thomson Reuters had estimates at $0.41 EPS and $9.27 billion in revenues. The units are where the story sounds worse than the raw figures.
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Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI) may actually hit that $500 million first week target after all. The company has announced this morning that since the 12:00 launch on Tuesday that its much-hyped “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ has become the biggest launch in history across all forms of entertainment. Forget Star Wars, forget Halo 3. The company has put the internal estimated sell-through sales at a figure of $310 million in North America and the United Kingdom alone in just the first 24 hours. The company also estimates that it sold approximately 4.7 million copies in just North America and the United Kingdom.
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SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) has been reaffirmed on its corporate debt rating at “B-” late in the day. While this is still very deep in “junk bond” territory at S&P, the outlook has been revised to positive from stable. This is after the earnings that we called mostly headed in the right direction last week, but it follows a relatively recent mid-August upgrade by S&P and it is fairly rare to see another call this fast on a controversial stock (and company) like Sirius. Still, there are some mixed notions in the call as the rating is so far from investment grade status.
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It has been nearly a year since 24/7 Wall St. did its latest edition of the Twenty Five Most Valuable Blogs. Valuations have moved up significantly since then. Advertising CPMs have improved markedly since the beginning of this year. A number of the largest blogs on our list have larger audiences than they did a year ago.
All of the blogs analyzed here are private companies. Blogs owned by larger firms are not measured. Blogs used primarily as fronts for other businesses have also been excluded. Some of the blogs on the list have raised VC money and those sums can be used as guidelines if they are disclosed. The only worthwhile value is what an acquirer will pay, so any estimate needs to take into account the value the blog may have to an outside buyer. Several blogs from earlier versions of this list were sold, among them Ars Technica and PaidContent. Some of the largest blogs based on audience measurements do not have significant revenue and are also excluded. For instance, “The Daily Beast”, a large news commentary site controlled by IACI, takes almost no advertising. In theory, it has little if any economic value at all. Read More
Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF) surged over 7% to a yearly high of $37.80 after the company was upgraded from “neutral” to “buy” by anlysts at Goldman Sachs.
DISH Network Corp. (NASDAQ: DISH) was up over 8% at its peak at a yearly high of $20.80 after the company announced that it would pay a one-time dividend of $2 for all Class A and B shares.
RadioShack Corp. (NYSE: RSH) rose over 14% today to a yearly high of $20.57 after the electronics retailer announced that it plans to sell Apple iPhones in some of its stores that are located in major metropolitian areas. This announcement has precipitated some analyst upgrades.
Revlon Inc. (NYSE: REV) surged over 37% today to a yearly high of $15.06. The company announced that it intends to offer $330 million in senior notes that will be due in 2015 in order to pay off debt due in 2011. The company was also upgraded to “outperform” by BMO Capital Markets.
Garrett W. McIntyre
Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is up with the broad market today by almost 2%, and shares are completely unphased at all on news that the company is spending $750 million in shares to acquire AdMob. While Google has made many deals, this is aimed to go deeper into the technology for mobile display advertising and will give advertisers more choice in mobile advertising.
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NBC Universal, the entertainment arm of GE (NYSE:GE) which is 20% owned by Vivendi, is worth $30 billion. That is the figure that GE and Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA), the cable company that intends to take control of NBCU agree on. Vivendi may be willing to take $6 billion for its piece of NBCU and if so, the valuation is to some extent academic. The $30 billion will also decide how much money Comcast will put into the joint venture that will own NBCU.
The Wall Street Journal has made the point that Vivendi could walk away from selling its stake and ruin the entire transaction, but it is hard to see what the French company would gain from that. Read More
CareFusion Corp. (NYSE: CFN) rose over 6% to a yearly hight of $24.34 after reporting first quarter earnings of 39 cents per share, beating analyst estimates. The company also increased its earnings forecast for next year.
Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA) rose close to 4% to a yearly high of $31.63, continuing its rise following its earnings release. The company posted a 15% increase in profits, to 76 cents per share.
Garrett W. McIntyre
Trusting analyst estimates on penny stocks and cult stocks is a tricky business. But SIRIUS XM Radio Inc.(NASDAQ: SIRI) is trading up on heavy volume after its earnings this morning. The satellite radio monopoly had a 27% revenue gain to $618.7 million, which included some of the XM Radio gains from the merger. Earnings were a net loss of $149.2 million or -$0.04 EPS, but this included a charge of $138 million. If you back out the charges and items, SIRIUS managed a non-GAAP $106 million profit vs a non-GAAP loss of $37 million a year ago. On an EPS basis, that would break-even. The estimates from Thomson Reuters were -$0.02 non-GAAP EPS and $608.7 million in revenue.
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China has approved a plan for Disney (NYSE:DIS) to build a theme part in Shanghai. The American entertainment company has been trying to get a go ahead to build the $4 billion project for several years. The Chinese government gave no reason for the timing of its announcement. Shortly after the news became public, Chinese residents began to attack plans to build the park. The Wall Street Journal reports that, based on online polls and comments “Walt Disney won’t make Shanghai the happiest place in the world.”
Disney joins a long list of companies from Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) to Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) to McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) and Ford (NYSE:F) which are willing to bet that the Chinese consumer will eventually become a critical part of the expansion of the economy in the world’s most populous country. China’s GDP has been driven by exports. The US, where most consumer-focused firms have made their profits over the years, has counted on those consumers to be the engine of its economic expansion. Read More
We have four key earnings for technology and media investors and traders due on Wednesday, and one key cult stock. The two biggest for tech which can impact all components of their related sub-sectors are Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) and QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM). Then in media and communications will be Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX). Lastly, there is one of Wall Street biggest cult stocks with Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE: VG) on deck. We have provided Thomson Reuters consensus estimates, and, where applicable, key performance measures and added color on each.
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Sony (NYSE:SNE) just announced its fourth consecutive quarterly loss. Part of that was due to red ink at its studio division. Its best chance for a blockbuster film in the current quarter is almost certainly the Michael Jackson rehearsal film “This Is It.” Jackson did not disappoint. Global ticket sales went above $100 million worldwide for the first five days after release.
The Jackson movie is only scheduled to be in theaters worldwide for two weeks. Many industry experts believe that the run will be extended if ticket sales continue to be as brisk as they were over the weekend. Read More
The film of Michael Jackson’s rehearsals for his British concert tour was a big risk for Sony (NYSE:SNE) which apparently put up $60 million for the rights to the footage. The gamble paid off.
The film “This is It” made $20 million in its first day. The movie was released worldwide and it will only be shown in theaters for two weeks. A music CD is being released at the same time and sales expectations for it are huge. Read More
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Target (NYSE:TGT), and Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) are apparently sharply limiting the number of books customers can buy under their programs to sell popular titles at discount prices. Book publishers have already claimed that the three companies are trying to monopolized book distribution.
The Wall Street Journal surmises that the reasons for the restriction on the number of books any one customer can buy has been set at two or three is that small book stores are buying the books and then marketing them up in price for their customers. While that may be true, the entrepreneur with one or two stores cannot offer the discounts that Amazon can. The huge e-commerce company can afford to lose money on the titles because visitors to it website may but other items. The book shop owner cannot afford to adopt the same tactic. Read More
The old media is running out of time. The online editions of The Washington Post (NYSE:WPO), New York Times (NYSE:NYT), and Time, Inc (NYSE:TWX) properties do well, but not well enough to off-set losses at their print properties. Read More
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